Significance Of Dolphus Raymond In To Kill A Mockingbird

K. M. Zeigler

Mr. Shambaugh

American Literature

1 March 2023

Dolphus Raymond’s Significance Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961, thus proving its significance in the American literary scheme. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is an admired novel that is read across the United States at the high school and collegiate levels to demonstrate the racist and biased deep south post-abolition. To Kill a Mockingbird traces the plot of a trial in Maycomb County, Alabama. A black man, Tom Robinson, is accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell. Tom eventually finds his predetermined fate when he tries escaping and is shot. The novel is narrated by Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, the daughter of Tom Robinson’s lawyer who is not a racist. Through Scout’s unbiased view, we meet the town of Maycomb. Dolphus Raymond, a seemingly

Bob Ewell, a white man with white children, seems to be more respected in southern society than Dolphus, a white man with a black girlfriend and mixed children. In reality, Dolphus is actually more righteous than Bob. The portrayal of these two characters through the venue of Scout shows the prejudice and distortion that the people of Maycomb have based on race or the association with a minority.

Dolphus Raymond represents how race has no effect on the moral standards of family, religion, and alcoholism, despite society’s beliefs. Dolphus Raymond also represents the concept of a mockingbird as does Atticus, Tom Robinson’s lawyer. Both are white men who associate themselves with black people: Dolphus with his girlfriend and Atticus with Tom Robinson. Mockingbirds represent an innocent who is victimized by evil. Both Atticus and Dolphus Raymond were honorable citizens that were despised by the general public of Maycomb because they dared to associate with the black